Handgun

A Handgun is a firearm capable of being wielded single-handed. These relatively short and compact weapons are designed for close range combat and easy carrying.

Handguns are one of the basic weapons of the Resident Evil series, and often the very first weapon the player has access to alongside the knife. These guns come in many designs and calibers, but are often loaded with 9mm Parabellum rounds in the Resident Evil games.

In most of iterations, the handgun are ill-suited for boss encounters due to their lower than average firepower. Nevertheless, the sheer abundance of ammunition allows it to whittle down and outlast even the toughest bosses in the hands of patient/ expert players. This trend has seen slight descent as from Resident Evil 4 onward, handguns are given special gimmicks to further their viability compared to other heavy hitting weapons.

An expert player looking for a challenge might use only handguns to complete a game; knowing these firearms offer high accuracy, low recoil, and plentiful ammo.

Handguns are often a standard issue weapon of many police and military organizations:

The main sidearm of the elite S.T.A.R.S. team is the Samurai Edge, a customized variant of the Beretta 92F pistol.

All the handguns in Resident Evil: Survivor and Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles have infinite ammunition.

The "Handgun" in Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles has infinite ammunition and appears different guns (but functionally the same) for each playable character.

In Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D and Resident Evil 6, the player can equip certain Skills effect how effective Handguns are.

In Resident Evil: Revelations, enemies have a specific set of resistance and vulnerability to each weapon type, in particular, Ooze and Scarmiglione are weak to Handgun damage. In Raid Mode, Jill, Parker, Raymond, and O'Brain have inherent skills that make them more effective with Handguns.